Hey, I'm Matt Rothschild and welcome to this episode of the Wisconsin Ford podcast on the Civic Media Radio Network and its Civic Media.us.
Today we're going to be talking about the militarization of policing that Donald Trump has foisted upon several major cities across our country.
What is this doing to policing? What is this doing to our democracy? And what can we do about it? We'll try to answer those questions for you.
My first guest on this episode is David Cooper, who is the Madison Police Chief for more than 20 years before becoming a Presbyterian minister for several decades after that.
And it was in that latter capacity that David Cooper led the August 2nd take up your cross protest against Christian nationalism and the cruel and unjust policies of the Trump administration.
I was pleased to be part of that demonstration, but David Cooper has never lost his interest in reforming police work.
He's the author of a tremendous book called Arrested Development of Veteran Police Chief sounds off about protest, racism, corruption, and the seven necessary steps to improve our nation's police.
And he continues to write about the subject of policing on his amazing blog, which is called naturally improving police dot blog.
David Cooper, welcome back to the Wisconsin Ford podcast. Happy to be here again and try to air some of these ideas that we think ought to be commonplace.
Yeah, wish that they were. You're one of the leading advocates of police reform that's community based and that downplays the use of force.
So what Trump is doing by militarizing the police and bringing in the National Guard must be a nightmare for you.
I think that's the correct word. I think it's a nightmare. I think it's an alternate reality. It's something I never ever thought would happen in all my years.
I really thought for, you know, that we have high aspirations in this nation. And I think that's a part of who we are.
Do we do we always achieve them? No, but we aspire.
And I thought, well, we're going to keep on aspiring. We're going to try to do a little bit better every year.
And then all of a sudden we're not we're sliding backwards. I mean, I mean, where are the originalists on our Supreme Court right now?
The originalists would have would have turned over in their grave about these autocratic efforts and support from legal institutions about a president that's gone awry.
I'm sorry. He's gone awry.
Oh, totally awry. And he's like, you know, the king of England bringing his troops into people's homes before the Revolutionary War.
That's right. Well, you know, I found her said no kings, no bishops. And at least we were half-right.
I must be difficult for you. You're 87. I'm 67 to see everything you've worked for kind of going down the tubes and what's rough for me.
Yeah, what do we, you know, what do we say to our grandkids?
Yeah, one of the one of the things I think I I posted when we were talking about getting people behind this cross march.
A lot of Christians said, Oh, I can't go out there and do something like that.
So what was that? Well, the cross. I mean, that's well, you're a Christian. What else have you got?
The cross has sort of been our traditional symbol of death, but also of resurrection and hope for the future.
So, so I think that one thing that they came out of that people people coming down on Saturday morning.
The takeaway was people said afterwards. They said, you know, you know, I protested against the war and about I protested against Jim Crow laws.
I've done all this stuff, but I've never written my whole life stuff for my faith.
And so that was a new experience by a lot of people. And I think if we did gain one thing is that people can come out with their core values and the group that I was privileged to be a part of.
This idea that that that we would have a big banner that would save resist government cruelty.
So that that's my organ and some members of my family that say, Oh, well, what's wrong with all this? And I said, OK, if we want to fix things, that's good. Let's fix them.
But we don't have to be cruel when we fix things.
And there's a level of cruelty even sadism on the part of Trump and some of his ideologues behind him. And then in some of these gestures that we've seen from ice and and National Guardsmen.
You say the putting the National Guard in our big cities, LADC, Chicago, who knows what's next, Memphis.
You say this is not just misguided. It's illegal, unnecessary and deeply, deeply un-American.
I think absolutely. I mean, our founders, you know, were very, very worried of central control coming from a monarchy.
I think they were very, very concerned. And certainly the first ten amendments to our constitution talks about those really concerns about speech and assembly and about about the sanctity of your home.
And those very important things, you know, specifically that we're not going to be able to house the soldiers can't come into our home like the British did and take over and say that's our residents because the king said so.
So I think that we have this this very strong tradition of being wary of of autocracy.
And, you know, how we can stand by without some major disruptions and watch officials,
officials, agents of our government with a job of enforcing our immigration laws to go in camouflage uniforms, no name tags and masks in an American city is outrageous of the highest, highest order.
And in some cases where let's say local police would be looking for criminals unless the criminal was known to be armed and dangerous would not be displaying, you know, long guns and pointing them at the citizens.
For right now, all of a sudden, you know, this is what we went through in Madison 1973 student protests about the war about about civil rights that that it came to be that there was an attitude on the police department that that these people are criminals because they were they were breaking our traffic laws by being in the street.
Yeah, the students were their enemies, the protest for the enemy were finding them and so so how do we how do we turn that around and I remember of early early only months into my my appointment here.
And there was going to be a large demonstration and the newly elected sheriff Bill Ferris was there. I forget who was the chancellor at the university he was there.
The county county officials, city officials were there and we're going to say, well, this is how we're going to respond. We're going to work with people.
All people to go into the streets were not going to make we're not going to fight over keeping people on the sidewalk because there's a there's a greater value here and that is the right of people who protest was going on their government,
and if they're peaceable, we would let them come into it and we would regulate the traffic. And I remember then, dear number two in command, in front of everyone's a jeep, we have fought long and hard to keep the students out of the street.
You're not going to let them go into the street. And I said, well, Inspector, yes, yes, we are because we're going to have a peaceful protest here and we're going to help people use their soul rights to protest what they think the government's doing wrong. That's who we are.
But Trump doesn't believe in the first amendment or protesting calls, you know, some of the protesters, I mean, talks about the enemy from within.
Well, protest means it means you're not on my side. That should be illegal.
That's what he thinks. Anyone who's not forum is anarchist, leftist, antifa, un-American and should be, you know, brought to heel. And so when he brings in soldiers, you know, you wrote in one of your blog posts, soldiers are trained for combat, not policing.
So what's going to happen when the soldiers are there?
I spent four years in active duty of the Marines, six years in the reserve. We were not trained to handle protest, the whole nature.
I mean, we train our military to kill the enemy. We don't train them to negotiate and have a middle ground and we could both live visibly together.
We don't do that. And it's unfair. It was really unfair to the men and women in our military to say that they're going to go into the cities and do police work.
What kind of police work? How are they trained? Are they trained in methods of investigation? Are they trained in methods of being able to reduce conflict?
No, no, they're not interested in how to put them in there. So the worst thing a leader can do is put an employee into a situation where he or she doesn't know what their job is.
Especially when they have lethal force.
Yes. Weapons.
Yeah, I mean, Steven Miller was even talking about having Trump bring the 82nd airborne into these cities.
Hello, hello. Is this America? It is. It isn't America, right? We hear something knocking out the door. Is this us? I don't this doesn't sound like us.
And then there is the example in Chicago where ice was repelling down from helicopters into an apartment building and the middle of the night barging down people's doors arresting them, dragging them out naked.
Oh, my gosh. If I just beat the exit, I would just be so happy.
We have, but if you're the mayor of Chicago, you're not happy. If you're those people in there. And I remember listening to Tom Hartman, you know, in the grade with this 1100 undocumented people, you know, broken immigration system.
We all, we all agree with that. Okay. All agree. It's broken. Should we be more cautious and more careful? Yeah, we should, we should be we need to improve that system.
We need, we need some help and if there are, in fact, murders rapists and drug dealers out there, I think we would.
The undocumented immigrant community would say, yes, get them out. They're hurting us to please let us go about our work paying taxes and going through a process because we want to be one of you because we believe in what you have. That's why we came here under great stress.
We came to your country to be one of you to help you make this country great. So get them out of there.
So people still believe that what we're doing is rounding up murderous rapists and drug dealers. We're not. That's not what they're doing in Chicago. It's false. It's all the data do not show that.
I remember one of the ice guys was saying to a bystander saying, what about the kids and he said, that's the kids when they, you know, arrested these kids. I mean, it's just.
It's amazing. So Tom Hartman was saying, you know, they're breaking every law in the books, including the Fourth Amendment rights to be securing your homes and all that.
So that's interest about the children. Remember when when the decided people coming across the border, we do separate their children.
You know, and it's like, you know, I spent 33 years in my life and I know the dark side and I can imagine this kind of conversation going on in Washington.
Well, we got those people coming over with their children. I can't believe they they would do that. Yeah, well, if we took away their kids, they wouldn't be so quick to come across the border.
Oh, hey, that's a, that's a great idea. We'll tell them we're going to separate their kids and that they won't be coming here.
So we do that. Okay, we have taken this whole group of people. We've separate them from the kids. We will show them.
And then somebody says, do we know which people we took away their kids from? Can we identify them? Oh, my gosh, I hadn't thought of that.
You know, those conversations, I think occurred. Say, but in the other side of that thing, and throughout the years, when, when maybe we would have police staff meetings and maybe one of my, my lieutenants would come up, hey, I got a great idea.
Let's separate their children and say, yeah, it's okay. I'm sure that would be a negative effect. I would think twice about going across the border where they took my children away.
But is this the right thing to do?
Yeah, well, I don't think that question is being asked in Washington, but in the Trump administration anyway.
Now, you've written that the local police need to resist. I need to not cooperate.
People are angry at me over that, but I maintain it. I maintain that who will protect us?
Who will protect us in our communities? If our local police who have sworn and oath of office to protect us and to be to protect the Constitution of our country does not somehow step up when people are being either illegally or immorally arrested and detained.
What are we going to do? Because one good thing, at least in the Third Reich in Germany, if you had papers, you could show your paper.
You would come up here, come show me your papers, you know, all the World War II movies, show me your papers.
Okay, so at least we had papers to say, look, I'm a citizen here. And look, I'm not Jewish. I've got a certification here that I'm not Jewish, so I don't get to go.
Okay, all right, you can go now. We don't have papers.
So if anybody came up to you or me, I mean, how would you prove your citizenship? Rothschild, that sounds.
Where'd you come from?
Are you one of them? Scots people that are resisting the British?
But just play it out. So if the local police see ICE or a National Guardsman doing something barging into a door without a warrant, which is violation of the Fourth Amendment, what is that local police officer supposed to do?
So this is what I'm recommending. And this is somewhat consistent with what at least I understand the rules of policy and Los Angeles Army between the mayor and the chief of police.
Is it police officers need to show up at instances where the ICE is in operation?
They need to video record what's going on? They need to identify the ICE officers who are unidentifiable and masked as to who they are.
And to have the name and information of the person they are detaining and to ascertain whether it is an administrative warrant or a legal warrant signed by a judge at a minimum that must go on.
So I'm wondering, I'm wondering, okay, let's see, I'm a police officer on this street and I've been called and there's ICE officers and they have this person and the person saying, I'm a citizen, what are you doing?
What's going on here?
Well, I am a citizen and this person is illegally arresting me, detaining me, stop them, help me here.
They're kidnapping me, the person that says that's right, they're kidnapping me and they're masked, they're masked, they're unidentifiable people who can use and have used force against people like me who resist.
What would a local police officer do? I would think that somehow there's got to be a freeze frame, stop, stop.
We're going to sort this out, hold this right here, we're going to determine whether this person is and no, no, no, you're not going to take her him to a nice facility where in the course of a few days they'll determine whether or not you're a citizen.
We'll determine right now whether not this person is a citizen and if he or she is, keep your hands off of them.
No, are you suggesting that police officers should bring his weapon out and say stop?
Well, I would hope he or she could do this without being out their weapon but couldn't physically intervene if necessary, stop, stop.
We're going to hold this thing right here, we're going to find out what the information is.
So I think that even more that what is your status in the immigration court?
I mean, these are administrative laws, they're not crimes, they're not crimes and what we're as a police officer would be seeing someone who is being in a such uniform kidnapped and kidnapping isn't.
And we should stop people being kidnapped and are and detained and put into a place where they're called a jail, that should be illegally, but somehow, you know, the fear.
And that's why they're masked, they're not masked because they're worried about people might find out who they are because every enforcement officer in the whole country could say that.
I'm not going to wear my name tag, I'm not going to give my name to you because you might come back to me.
Well, if you're behaving yourself, no one's going to come back on you.
And the second thing is the whole business of basking is to incite fear in us.
You know, I'm worried that either ice officers or the National Guard or, you know, the 82nd Airborne or someone, some unity is going to open fire on protesters.
Kent State, Kent State, it's going to happen. You know, if you got guns out and you're feeling threatened and you're fearful, people have been killed in our country.
And what would happen if there's if that were to occur if there's another Kent State?
Well, you know, in a presidential control legal system is that, well, they shouldn't have been resisting.
That was a criminal behavior protest what I'm doing.
And that'll really tear this country apart.
Well, I think so. Kent State almost did. It was amazing how we got through Kent State.
Really, when you think about it, like, gosh, you know, in Ohio, the National Guard was deployed untrained.
All of a sudden somebody started shooting and we're dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
And how did we get through that period then?
Well, I think we had leadership in this country that said that what Dr. King and others were trying to do.
Look at all the heat Dr. King got when he came out against the Vietnam War.
Oh, wait, that's that's too much. You shouldn't do that.
I think we we had enough what protests not something it doesn't mean anything today that that's the trouble.
When when you've got truth social millions of people looking at presidential edicts not by not by fear out, but by by social media, we've got a problem.
And then are you worried about the insurrection act and the Trump is just going to say, you know enough is enough. I'm invoking the insurrection act.
We got martial law here. We know that's coming. I mean, it's got to. It's I mean, the rhetoric was there.
This country is out of control.
Portland's out of control and we'll show.
Video from the from the 2020 when things were out of control.
Chicago's out of control. Washington's out of control.
Even though crime rates down 30% or whatever.
But see people people believe, you know, the big lie, you know, the big lie.
Never deny just continue to lie. And that's that's what seems to be working right now.
But but then it really hasn't affected anybody other than people who have accents and who skin is brown in our country.
And and by the time it affects you and I, it's going to be too late.
Yeah. And the time is coming.
It's it's faster, neomolar, right back back in the 30s and after everything happened in Germany saying, you know, you know, when when they came after the communist.
Well, I was not a communist.
And they came after after gypsies. I was not a gypsy.
And they came after the homosexual while I was not.
And then he said, you know, the unstable is that when they came after me, there was no one to protest.
Well, I think now is the time for us to protest.
And we need we need leadership here to to help us get this country back on track again.
Yeah, we need faith voices like yours. We need leadership within police departments.
We need leadership within the military. We saw all those generals sitting stone-faced.
It was that most ridiculous speech by Hegseth and then by Trump.
That was a hopeful day. That was a hopeful day that at least.
But, you know, you know, and it doesn't come through.
It doesn't come through the big orders.
It doesn't come from the president telling the general, go out and stop that stuff out there.
Or you need to make a difficult or you need to arrest these people.
It starts incrementally bit by bit to when they say, okay, when they come out again, shoot them.
Because they're criminals. They're protesting.
Could this happen in America? You know, ask me this 10 years ago.
I said, absolutely not. You know, we are developing.
We are growing. We're becoming a good nation.
We help other people in the world.
You know, we have a good heart. It's not going to happen here.
But I can't say that anymore.
So how are we going to get through this period?
I'm waiting. You know, I know that what I write has little impact.
I know that what I, that our conversations here over the last few weeks have little, little impact.
But it has some impact. I guess it has some impact.
What I'm, what I'm hoping is that, you know, somebody, somebody comes forth to take up the torch.
And it's going to be, be difficult because all the power is on the other side now.
All the fear is within the country, something.
You know, it's got to, I have yet to be affected.
You probably haven't been affected. Most of us haven't been affected yet.
We think we know what's going to happen. It's not going to be good.
But it really hasn't happened yet about our health care, about our economy,
or about about our legal system.
But it is. And to watch Pam Bondi in jousting with our nation's leaders,
it's, it's scary.
Yeah, it's a scary time. We're going to need more voices.
I mean, I might not have been the best, the advocate for Jim Coleman.
And I criticized some of the things he did.
And the FBI probably needs some improvement, but not this way.
We don't get what we want by prosecuting our enemies in the long run.
But do you think we will get through this?
Well, there's a person of faith. I have hope.
And I know that I only have a short time on this planet,
and I know that there's a divine essence in the universe
that will eventually put this right.
Oh, I hope so. David Cooper, thanks so much for being my guest again
on the Wisconsin Ford Podcast. It's always great talking with you.
With me now is my friend and occasional guest co-host
on the Civic Media Radio Network, Angela Lang.
You'll often get to hear Angela on the Maggedon show
and on Matt Nair on air.
And she's also a prize-winning colonist
for the recombobulation area.
And all that's on her spare time.
Because by day, she's the executive director of block,
black leaders organizing for communities.
Angela, welcome to the Wisconsin Ford Podcast.
Thank you for having me.
Hey, for people who are listening who don't know about block,
why don't you take a second or two
to explain what your organization's all about?
Yeah, so we're a year-round civic engagement organization
that started in 2017.
So our anniversary is coming up actually next month in November.
Congratulations.
Thank you. One of the things that we wanted to do
was to kind of reshift and reframe how electoral politics
is done in the black community.
After the 2016 election, there was a lot of hot takes,
some of which included that it was the black community's faults.
And we had talked to folks.
We had heard stories that people didn't feel that they were engaged
or were some of the most disenfranchised.
And so how do we kind of take some of those issues and challenges
and have a year-round strategy
and try to build that long-term black political power?
So our team, even though we don't have elections right now,
our team is knocking on doors.
We have monthly community meetings, which we just had one on Saturday.
We're gearing up for a Halloween event for the kids.
We have all sorts of different give back type of events
for the community, but we're also making sure that people
understand what's going on and helping people make sense
of this moment.
And they know how to use their voices and advocate for that as well.
What are people hearing at the doors, by the way?
You know, I think right now people are just thinking
that things feel really crazy.
And I think it's hard to kind of stay grounded
with everything that's happening.
People are working multiple jobs.
You know, kids are back in school.
You're wrestling with child care.
You know, we're hearing a lot around child care,
even amongst our own team,
with some of the challenges that they have.
And I think right now people are scared.
People are like, what is going on federally?
You know, are we going to have civil rights anymore?
And so I think that there is a lot of fear,
but also being people are hurting with the economy, right?
People expected or people were told, I should say,
during the campaign that inflation and all these things
were going to be affordable suddenly on day one.
And we're not seeing that.
And so we see small businesses that are hurting.
And we've seen, you know, more and more community members
have to come by and utilize our services for like our back
to school drive and our toy drive.
We're anticipating having more requests for toys at the end of the year,
just because people are navigating such,
I would say, to mulchless times,
not only financially, but I also think like mentally.
Every time you turn on the news, there's another attack
where there's something else on potentially your community.
Yeah, I mean, Trump hasn't been very subtle about that.
Now, has he?
No, not at all.
He's been making it very clear.
No, Angela Languette, a recent piece
at the Recombobulation Area called
weaponizing the National Guard is fascism.
I'd like to talk to you about that.
I mean, this downhill spiral toward fascism
is happening so fast.
And we're seeing it most noticeably with this use
of the National Guard.
How is this hitting you?
You and your organization have talked 180 degrees
from this kind of militarized approach to policing.
And yet here it is upon us.
Yeah, you know, I would say that there is a lot of organizations
like Block that had been concerned about the militarization
of police long before Trump, right?
You start to pay attention to police budgets
and they become more and more bloated.
And then you start to look in the details
and some of the equipment and the little toys and tools
that they want to have such as facial recognition technology
which we're trying to stop in the city of Milwaukee,
all of that had been a concern for a while, right?
We had seen how we are investing more into policing
than in some cases education, right?
And so this had been something that I think a lot of folks
have been worried about when you started to see
the militarization of policing.
And like I said, this is long before Trump.
It's been long before this moment.
But when you have a president who is like you said Matt,
not being shy about anything that he is saying
or any of his threats,
we see that it is a little bit more of a concern,
being able to weaponize things like the National Guard
and using the military on its own citizens,
I think is a different level.
And so for us, you know, the first priority always is to,
you know, keep us safe.
The organization safe, but specifically the team
that is out knocking doors and doing the work.
And for us, we never thought that safety
equaled more police.
We've had police interactions at our office
and police harassment at our office.
We've seen our team being pulled up and harassed
when they're knocking doors by police.
And if this is what the case was,
long before Trump was elected,
we can only imagine now in this political climate,
and how scary things are even more now.
You wrote in this article that this isn't about public safety.
If we're serious about public safety,
you wrote we want to be cutting services
and access to healthcare housing,
resources for lower income residents,
education and so much more.
And that's been your long-term critique
of misguided budgets in Milwaukee
and across the country for that matter.
Leaving aside the Trump militarization for a second,
what are some of the successes of this kind of approach
to crime and community-based social-based response
to crime and policing?
Yeah.
I mean, we see community-based solutions
where there's kind of policing through a community lens
and it's through a level of accountability
and restorative justice.
We've also seen mayors, specifically black mayors,
across the country, in places like Baltimore
that are investing into programs,
such as after-school programs,
and youth programs,
a lot of times people think of crime
and they think of it at a very surface level.
But if you want to get to the root cause of crime,
you have to invest in these things
that's a lot of the reason why people are doing these crimes
is because they're trying to survive.
I often said, I don't believe that people just wake up
and are like, I'm going to play Scarface today
because I saw it in a movie and that looks cool.
People aren't just glamorizing crime.
I think a lot of times people are struggling
and are trying to survive.
And so if we want to actually reduce crime,
we should make sure that people are whole
and make sure that people's basic needs are met.
And so when you see a rise in policing
without that investment in the community,
you're not actually going to get the results
of a decrease in crime
because only investing in policing
is putting a bandaid on it.
Police don't actually reduce crime.
They respond to it after something happens.
So how do we make sure that they don't even
have to respond in the first place
because the crime isn't happening?
Angela in Milwaukee,
where you live, how's the mayor there?
Johnson been handling the issue of crime?
You know, I will say that this is one of the points of,
you know, disagreement that block often has with the mayor.
We don't think that there should be more investment
into policing,
but we also know that the shared revenue deal,
you know, Act 12 had allowed
for having to maintain levels of the police.
And so we did, you know,
critique the mayor when that Act 12 was happening
because they had some poison pills.
We wanted to raise our taxes.
Otherwise, we were go bankrupt,
but Republicans said they would only allow it
if we kept policing at same levels or higher.
So no longer being able to divest or defund the police.
It gutted our fire and police commission authority
and put a lot of it back in the hands
of the police chief,
so our oversight mechanism.
And then it put cops back in schools
and mind you,
those three kind of poison pills had nothing to do
with, you know, being able to raise a sales tax in Milwaukee.
And it was something that the mayor had to fight for.
I would say, you know, giving him a little bit of grace.
He was in a terrible position as a mayor
with this financial constraints.
I just wish we could have reached a deal
where those things didn't happen.
But we're watching right now very closely
in how the mayor and how he's proposing his budget,
but then also he is in current contract negotiations
with the Milwaukee Police Association
because he's not giving them their nearly 13% raise
that they're asking for.
And so we do appreciate the mayor saying,
you know, I'm not going to give the police a 13% raise
and we want to make sure that he holds on to that,
you know, contract negotiations are tricky.
Last I heard they were in arbitration
and we'll see what happens from that.
So we're watching closely, you know,
it is budget season.
So people are talking about what the budget means for them
and what it looks like.
We're combing through it ourselves.
But it's the mayor, you know,
we know that the mayor has to,
isn't a different spot than say someone like myself, right?
I get a chance to kind of say and be a little bit more outspoken
what should be invested in and what shouldn't be.
But I do wish the mayor would be a little bit more bold
and re-imaginative.
So we wouldn't have to constantly be bloating this police budget.
And you mentioned the Milwaukee Police Association.
What's up with that group?
Because in September the head of the group
basically was inviting Trump to send troops to Milwaukee.
Yeah, that was really kind of like the impetus
for the article quite frankly.
You know, I, we knew that they were having a protest,
a protest of the mayor because of the contract negotiations.
And we have been keeping an eye on that.
We were curious of how it was going to go.
But about, and I was on a Friday,
on Wednesday before is when the police association president
said that, you know,
if the mayor isn't going to support his own cops,
maybe I should ask Donald Trump to bring in the National Guard
to Milwaukee.
So that sounded a bunch of alarm bells for us organizers.
And we put together a counter protest very quickly.
And it, it was, it's interesting because,
you know, the, the president's,
he wanted to kind of appear kind of like this tough guy.
And, you know,
but I think at every moment,
he was making some missteps.
And that's just not my bias,
but that's just general missteps.
I think, you know, him saying that,
and threatening to bring in the National Guard.
I don't think some of his own rank and file union members
would have agreed with that.
I also think that they thought it put their raise in jeopardy
by saying that.
So I think it, I don't know what fully is up with that guy,
but the instant that, you know,
we did our counter protest,
they saw us and then they went inside.
So he's not exactly operating from a position of strength,
in my opinion.
And as since retracted, I hear his invitation
to Trump to bring the National Guard in.
Yeah, I mean, we're still watching,
you could, you know,
that, that comment came out of nowhere.
Clearly, I think just off of the cuff
and without running it by his own membership.
But, you know,
he shouldn't have said it in the first place.
So while he may have retracted,
we're still going to keep an eye on some of those comments
because if he can just say that off the cuff
and use that as a, as a real tangible threat,
it goes to show that we should really be paying attention
to his words and actions.
And what would happen if Trump,
whether he, the police association had asked for it or not?
Trump says, I'm going to, you know,
Milwaukee's next National Guard's come to Milwaukee.
How do you think Milwaukee would respond?
I think that's something that a lot of organizers are planning
and thinking about.
And not planning because we wanted to happen,
but just being prepared in case it does.
There's a lot of organizers that are connected to organizers
in Chicago,
supporting them,
also doing solidarity marches and rallies,
saying, you know, we stand in solidarity with Chicago
and we're not going to allow this here.
I can imagine a lot of those same organizers
that are part of those solidarity marches
are going to respond.
And, you know, for me,
I've had the scenario on my head of what does it look like?
If suddenly he says, yeah, Milwaukee is next.
And he does bring in the National Guard.
I do think that there will be a stronger response.
The mayor said that he does not think
that the National Guard is needed.
And I can only hope that the governor
would agree with that as well.
And so I would hope that our elected officials,
especially our mayor and our governor
are standing strong and outspoken
if that were to ever happen.
But I could see it.
It could actually be some protest and some resistance.
And I think the big priorities,
making sure that everyone is kept safe.
But I think that's the point is that he's trying to,
you know, minimize a level of resistance because of fear.
You know, people saying,
I met someone recently and she said, you know,
I'm not really going to protest,
but I'm going to the one on the 18th.
And I'll be lying if I didn't say I was a little scared.
But I don't care.
Whatever they got going on, I don't care.
And I think that's really powerful
because if people are so scared to actually exercise
the rights that we currently have,
then they will be taken away.
Yeah, and then we really don't even have them
in actual practice anyway.
They're gone.
Exactly.
Have you given thought?
I'm sure you have.
I have two to what happens if it goes
from bringing in the National Guard
to invoking the Insurrection Act.
And then what do you do?
Yeah, I think that's where things really get incredibly scary.
I think we,
I've always thought about this in like a two-prong approach.
There's kind of the mutual aid,
the kind of underground.
How do we keep people safe aspect?
And there's going to be people that,
and networks that step in and fill that gap,
and making sure that folks that are the most vulnerable,
whether it be immigrants, black folks,
trans folks, etc, are safe.
You know, Angela, every time we talk together,
we bet around the idea of
how are we going to get through this period?
Yeah.
Do you have, are you able to see around the corner on this?
Not at the moment.
I did see a meme,
the other day on social media,
that was like,
yeah, there is no like at the end of the tarp tunnel.
It's kind of dark right now.
I don't understand.
So that's kind of how I'm feeling
because I don't know what the answers are,
no one does.
We don't know how or when we really get out of this,
and I think that determines how that things will get.
I think a big indicator is we'll see what the midterms look like,
and what those elections and the process,
specifically,
of those elections look like.
But I think in the meantime,
while we're in this dark period,
I just keep having to remind myself,
what does it look like to be in community with people?
Right?
We've had some kids in the office,
and me tapping in with childcare,
with a baby on my hip,
and we're playing with slime, right?
At the office.
So for me, I think it's being able to have those people,
to have your village,
to have your people when things are hard, right?
Things may be metaphorically burning outside,
but who are your people that you can still feel alive with?
And that's what I hope other people can do too.
Oh, I think that's a great note to end on being in community,
support your people.
Love your people.
Angela Langton.
Thanks so much for your tremendous asset
to the whole state of Wisconsin,
the whole country for that matter.
Thanks for being my guest.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
Well, that's going to have to be it for this episode
of the Wisconsin Forward podcast
on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Matt Rothschild,
and I want to thank our two great guests,
David Cooper and Angela Lang.
I also want to thank my engineer and producer Dom Lee,
who's always great to work with,
and I want to thank Sage Wilde of Civic Media
for giving me this platform.
But most of all, I want to thank you for listening.
I'll be back soon with another episode
of the Wisconsin Forward podcast,
where I'll dive deeper into the discussion
about how to resist authoritarianism.
I'm looking forward to that one,
and I hope you are too,
because the fight must go on.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Bye.
